Deep in the weeds with Keir Starmer

Unpicking the Prime Minister's article for The Times to understand more about the emptiness of modern political language.

Previously: Cold day in The Sun
Rupert Murdoch's UK empire has finally admitted to unlawful activity at The Sun but a real reckoning will never come.

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What’s the point of articles by the Prime Minister placed in the press? They’re not designed to target the general readership of a particular newspaper or to reach the wider electorate, especially when they’re behind a paywall. They exist as pumped-up press releases, a nod to a specific publication’s perceived importance, and something for reporters and commentators to drag news lines from.

While acknowledging that these pieces—the products of much agonising by speechwriters and advisors—aren’t designed to be read by anyone other than wonks and political hacks, I want to examine Keir Starmer’s contribution to The Times today. By dissecting it, we can learn more about the vacuum at the heart of modern political rhetoric. 

The article, headlined We’ll cut the weeds of regulation and let growth bloom, begins with a trio of bland, staccato sentences:

Growth is the defining mission of this government. It is the only way to deliver our Plan for Change and put more money in people’s pockets. The only cure for the sickness of stagnation and decline.

There’s an assumption that the reader is familiar with the government’s “Plan for Change”, the “milestones for a mission-led government” that it launched in December 2024 with a document featuring lots of mugshots of grinning ministers. The opening paragraph also hits you with the first of a barrage of cliched metaphors.

Having established the growth theme, Starmer tries to persuade the reader that the plan is already working:

We should be confident about Britain’s prospects. Inflation is falling. Wages are growing at their fastest rate for three years. More than 70,000 jobs have been created since July. The UK was voted the second most attractive destination for private investment. We are on track to be the fastest-growing major economy in Europe — that is what leading agencies like the International Monetary Fund predict.

Inflation, which was at 2.5 per cent in December 2024, has fallen significantly since it hit 11.1 per cent in October 2022, but that still means prices are rising, they’re just rising more slowly than they were before. The UK was voted “second most attractive destination for private investment” in PwC’s annual survey of global business leaders, published last week ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The next paragraph is where the piece shifts from reciting facts, however carefully picked and pruned, to clumsy rhetorical conceits:

But as the chancellor will set out in her speech on Wednesday, we can go further and faster. Because there is a morass of regulation that effectively bans billions of pounds more of investment from flowing into Britain. Thickets of red tape that, for all the Tories talked a good game, was allowed to spread through the British economy like Japanese knotweed. Our pledge today is that this government will do what they could not. We will kick down the barriers to building, clear out the regulatory weeds and allow a new era of British growth to bloom.

Ignoring the grammatical car crash that is “thickets of red tape that…was” and the unforced concession that “the Tories talked a good game”, this is an example of a metaphor tortured to destruction. The British economy becomes a garden surrounded by barriers and choked by thickets of red tape that are also like Japanese knotweed. Farmer Starmer promises to be kicking, weeding, and planting all at once.

Descending from the imaginary garden, Starmer tries to return to solid ground:

This may seem like an unusual goal for Labour politicians. But deregulation is now essential for realising Labour ambitions in this era — a crucial component of my Plan for Change. If we don’t deregulate the planning system, then we cannot spread the security of home ownership to the next generation. If we don’t simplify environmental protections, then we cannot decarbonise our electricity grid and generate cheaper, homegrown energy. And if we don’t curb regulator overreach, then we won’t unlock the investment needed for a more prosperous future.

That paragraph at least offers examples of what Labour is actually proposing to do but they’re kept deliberately vague. “Deregulate”, “simplify”, and “curb” all sound solid but there are contradictions and complications beneath those deceptively basic if/then statements. And with the promise of support for a third runway at Heathrow, "[simplifying] environmental protections” translates to kicking the can down the road.

The piece shifts again into that staccato rhythm that it began with:

Time and again, my conversations with leading CEOs come back to this. Blue chip companies who are excited to do business in Britain. Shovel-ready projects ready to go. But then come the objections. Then come the vexatious legal challenges. The endless consultations with a myriad of government regulators.

The aim is to sound sharp and decisive, but that ends up completely removing nuance from the discussion. Business good, environmental concerns bad. Starmer is apeing the language of the right-wing columnist for whom regulators are the worst kind of monsters. It’s a black-and-white world where the only kind of legal challenges are vexatious ones and consultations can only be unacceptable roadblocks.

The pandering to a right-wing commentariat continues:

This is exactly what happened in the now-infamous case of the £100 million HS2 bat tunnel. Taxpayer money spent on a ludicrous conclusion, enforced by regulation. Yet, for many investors, it is often easier to quietly shelve their ambitions and look elsewhere. An anatomy of decline that adds up to the bigger story. A British economy that does not invest to anything like the levels of our competitors. And so finds itself, in the middle of a generational global race on artificial intelligence, at risk of being left behind.

Of course, he uses the “£100 million HS2 bat tunnel” example. It’s easy to raise and is ludicrous enough to push other more sensible concerns aside. Similarly, talking about AI is the simplest way of seeming committed to the future without asking any difficult questions about what that technology will actually mean.

Racing towards the conclusion, Starmer’s article now delivers an avalanche of meaning-flavoured meaningless:

We are determined to change this. After all, growth is a partnership. And as I made clear going into the election, Labour is the party of wealth creation. Our job is to work with businesses to create the environment that best allows them to thrive. Last year, our priority was dealing with the nightmarish inheritance left by the previous government. It is simply not possible for Britain to face down the challenges of our volatile world without a strong foundation of economic stability. And it is not possible for working people to realise their aspirations without the security good public services provide. Fixing this foundation was the right approach for the national interest. Moreover, economic stability helps attract long-term investment and this is now bearing fruit. Already, business investment is at its highest level for nineteen years.

“Growth is a partnership” could be written across a Facebook meme of a cat riding on a big dog’s back. “Working people” is one of Starmer’s favourite phrases because it allows him to dismiss everyone else without diving completely into outright Tory talk about scroungers. Meanwhile, “Labour is the party of wealth creation” is one of those slogans that won’t convince Conservatives and makes traditional Labour supporters feel distinctly queasy; it’s a pitch to the big money donors to keep the faith.

There then comes a section that again appears to offer detail while avoiding it:

…this year we have shifted gears with a raft of pro-growth deregulation policies. We will streamline environmental obligations. We will limit the cynical legal challenges that block major infrastructure projects. We will strip away the years of consultation that drown builders. We will cut the number of statutory consultees who can slow or veto projects. We will intensify development in urban areas and around key transport hubs — like train stations — with a presumption in favour of quality building. Every state regulator will be given an explicit duty to consider growth. Artificial intelligence will be placed at the heart of our new industrial strategy. The untapped wealth of defined benefit pension schemes will be unlocked to back British business. We will finally grasp the nettle on major national infrastructure projects and speed up decision-making. And we will keep our foot firmly on the accelerator when it comes to planning reform. A “big build” that will create new homes, warehouses and data centres, the length and breadth of our country.

Starmer is back in the garden again “[grasping] the nettle” but what do phrases like “artificial intelligence will be placed at the heart of our new industrial strategy” and “every state regulator will be given an explicit duty to consider growth” actually mean? “We have shifted gears with a raft of pro-growth deregulation policies” is the kind of gibberish that Liz Truss was rightly castigated for spouting.

Having praised Margaret Thatcher for bringing “meaningful change” to Britain in a December 2023 piece for The Sunday Telegraph, Starmer returns to that theme:

A change in the economic weather can only ever come from a supply-side expansion of the nation’s productive power. In the 1980s, the Thatcher government deregulated finance capital. In the New Labour era, globalisation increased the opportunities for trade. This is our equivalent. For too long regulation has stopped Britain building its future. On Wednesday, the chancellor will show how this government will sweep it away. And working people will benefit.

Thatcher is said to have quipped that her greatest achievement was “Tony Blair and New Labour” because she had “forced [her] opponents to change their minds”. Starmer’s mind is clearly haunted by her too. Do the lessons of the Grenfell fire, the infected blood scandal or the Post Office’s persecution of sub-postmasters suggest that regulation has been Britain’s biggest problem?

Slice through the thickets of sloganeering and what you discover in Starmer’s article is not a plan for radically sowing the seeds the change but a bunch of bouquets to be handed out to those who already benefit from the status quo. It is the sound of a government that wants to assure the already comfortable that they’ll be just fine.

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